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Guests were pushed against a wall and shot by impromptu firing squads. The King's brother, Prince Moulay Abdullah, was hit in the arm during one such volley, then left by his would-be executioners when he fell and played dead. But it became evident that the King was meant to be spared. At one point cadets burst into his sanctuary and ordered him outside with the other surviving guests. A young soldier, nervously fingering the trigger of his rifle, took Hassan aside Alone, he kissed the King's hand. Hassan was astounded. "We are cadets of the military school of Abermoumou," the young man explained. "We were told that there was a plot under way aimed at the King, that the royal palace had been occupied and that your august life was in danger. It was to save you that we entered the palace." ∙ The battle shifted as suddenly as it had begun. Some cadets left the palace to seize installations in Rabat. Loyal soldiers arrived; outgunned, the remaining rebels surrendered. The bystanders stood up warily to survey a scene that had abruptly changed from carnival to carnage. In the 2½hour battle, 92 of the guests and royal household had been killed, including the three French doctors and Belgian Ambassador Marcel Dupret. In addition, 160 of the mutineers, including Medbouh, were dead and 133 people were wounded.
Hurrying back to Rabat to cable word of the event, diplomatic partygoers were stunned by the normality beyond the palace. Only a mile away, as the shaken guests sped by, grinning Moroccan fishermen stood beside the road, holding up their day's catch for sale.